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Corbin didn’t laugh. He was too focused on Belle suddenly taking time off from work. He knew she’d been upset the other night. Any fool could have seen that. But he figured she’d be over it by now and she and Liberty would have worked things out.
Obviously not.
“Is Belle okay?” he asked.
“Jesse doesn’t think so. I guess she moved out of Cloe’s house and is staying in some hotel.”
“And they let her?”
Sunny glanced over at him. “She’s an adult woman, Cory. She gets to make the choice where she wants to live.” Her eyes narrowed. “And why are you worried about Belle, anyway? I thought you didn’t like her.”
It was a good question. He wished he had a good answer. Before he could make one up, Sunny glanced over his shoulder and her eyes widened. “Oh, no!” Without any warning, she urged her horse into a gallop.
Homer, being the follower that he was, took off after her, with Corbin hanging on for dear life and praying he wouldn’t fall off and break his neck. Once Homer slowed, Corbin saw what had caused Sunny’s concern. A longhorn steer had gotten stuck in an overgrown mesquite tree. Sunny never could ignore an animal in distress. As soon as she reached the tree, she jumped off her horse. Which scared Corbin to death.
“No, Sunny!” he yelled as he dismounted and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Hank.”
“We can’t wait for Hank. Look how scared he is.”
He didn’t look scared to Corbin. He looked pissed off. The animal was twisting his head back and forth, his sharp horns poking out of the branches like twin daggers.
“I mean it, Sunny,” Corbin said. “Get back on your horse. I’ll handle this.”
“You don’t know anything about cattle.”
“Neither do you. Now get back on your horse. I’ll free him. Please, Sunny.” Please was the one word that worked the best with his sister. Probably because he only used it when he was about to have a heart attack.
“Fine. But don’t you dare get gored. You might be an annoying big brother, but I’ve gotten used to you.”
Once Sunny was safely on her horse, Corbin tied Homer’s reins to a mesquite branch and moved closer to the struggling steer. “Easy there, big fella. I’m here to help.” The animal rolled his eyes at him and continued to tug at his extremely sharp-looking horns entangled in the gnarled branches of the tree. “Bring me your rope, Sunny.”
Sunny moved her horse up next to him and handed him her rope. It took some doing to get the rope tied around the thick branch that was holding the steer. Especially when trying to avoid thrashing horns. Once Corbin felt like it was secure enough, he tossed the other end to Sunny.
“Wrap that around your saddle horn and see if you can break that branch off.”
She nodded and wrapped the rope around the saddle horn before she clicked her tongue and the horse started backing up. It didn’t take much to break off the branch and free the steer. Corbin got ready to jump out of the way in case the cow charged. But the steer merely shook his head and then continued eating the grass beneath the tree as if he hadn’t just gotten stuck in it.
“We did it!” Sunny crowed. “We’re ranchers!”
“More like two greenhorns who just got lucky,” he said, but Corbin couldn’t help grinning the entire ride home. When they got back to the ranch, Hank stepped out of the barn to help Sunny dismount and she couldn’t wait to tell him all about their rescue.
“You should have seen him, Hank. Cory didn’t even blink. He just walked straight toward that big bull and freed him.”
“It wasn’t a bull, Sunny,” Corbin corrected. “It was a steer.” Hank looked at him with surprise and Corbin couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a mistake. “A steer has been castrated, right?”
Hank studied him intently. “That’s right. And you got that steer out?”
“Yes, sir.” The sir just popped out. Annoyed, he added, “It’s my steer, after all.” He started unsaddling Homer. A thump on the back startled him and he glanced up to see Hank standing there.
“Good job.”
Once Corbin finished unsaddling Homer and made sure he was groomed and had water, he headed to the house to get some work done. The Wi-Fi company had sent a guy out the day before so Corbin had a lot of catching up to do. But once in his office with Tay cuddled on his lap, he couldn’t seem to stay focused. His mind kept wandering to Belle being all alone in a dreary hotel room.
After trying to read through a contract for the sixth time without retaining any of the words, he finally gave up and went in search of Mimi. He found her out front in her flower garden.
“Sounds like you had an exciting afternoon,” she said as soon as she glanced up and saw him standing on the porch. Tay wiggled to get down. When he set her on the porch, she leapt down the steps and weaved her way through the flowers to greet the old woman. Mimi laughed and took off one gardening glove to pet the kitten.
Corbin sat down on the top step. “Sunny exaggerates my abilities.”
